KARAOKE APP POISED TO CLIMB UP CHARTS
Smule ready to be Silicon Valley player
The next big social network is an investor gold mine you’ve probably never heard of — but one you soon won’t be able to unhear.
It’s Smule, and it’s all about karaoke — singing by yourself, performing a duet with a complete stranger, and even crooning to a big hit with the famous artist who wrote it.
Somehow, Smule has convinced 4 percent of all Americans to try it out, and has seen its active users grow 70 percent every year for the last seven years, with no signs of abating.
For every person who believes that they have a secret amazing singing voice, this is the terrible validation they’ll need to keep belting it out. And for those true talents, it’s a way to collaborate with your fellow melodically inclined ilk.
Users’ profiles come in the form of music “channels.” Singers choose from a variety of sound filters like “pop” and “polish,” the vocal equivalent of what Instagram offers for pictures. A pitch correction option is available, but it’s terribly obvious when it’s used. Singers can go solo or to record as a duet, in which case another vocalist can drop in and record with them later — sort of like the singing equivalent of a photo bomb. From what I can tell, people love to see that someone else has decided to collaborate with them, and it often leads to a friendly back-and-forth.
Co-founded by Jeff Smith, a Stanford University computer science graduate and serial entrepreneur, Smule is part of a trend toward technology that makes music more accessible. On the hardware side are devices like Roli, the lighted blocks that become modular music studios, complete with a touch-responsive surface that connects to a music creation app on your mobile device.
With 1.5 million paying subscribers and 50 million monthly users that play and sing about 20 million songs each day, Smule will likely become a big deal in Silicon Valley and potentially Wall Street. It has more users than even Apple’s music streaming service, at 17 million subscribers. But what makes this app investable is the $7.99 monthly VIP subscription. That equates to $12 million in monthly revenue. Smule appears to have a great relationship with artists, having secured contracts with 300 million music publishers. It doesn’t use master recordings, just the karaoke approximation, so it pays licensing fees and royalties, which are cheaper.
Smule is the largest social network in the world that is free from controversy, which is part of why many people have never heard of it. But someone is paying attention, if the $75 million it has raised from investors is any indication. The network has used those funds to build out its infrastructure, like a new massive data center in Singapore.
I am not Smule’s target demographic. I’m tonally challenged, karaoke-averse and far past the days of being able to do mindless fun stuff in my (lack of) free time. In looking into the music app that all my younger friends and siblings kept telling me about, I figured I was about to explore the latest celebration of ineptitude, a new way to turn everyone into an auto-tuned superstar and devalue true talent.
I got a chuckle out of watching a fan do a duet with Ed Sheeran and totally overshadow the artist on his own song. I realized I have a family member who is way more talented than I ever knew. And I saw people all over the world singing with someone they had never met.
Maybe this wasn’t the social network I wanted to love, but may well be the one the world needs.